


Finding Warmth in a Storm

by adadshi



Series: Adashi Month 2019, 2020 [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Storms, Thunder and Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25767139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adadshi/pseuds/adadshi
Summary: It was only when Adam flinched after a particularly loud moment of thunder that Shiro understood what was happening. Adam was scared of thunderstorms.(Adashi Month 2020 prompt: Highschool AU)
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Adashi Month 2019, 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1428493
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	Finding Warmth in a Storm

**Author's Note:**

> a present for @DumbGayBitch13 on twitter, who suggested I write a fic about Shiro helping Adam deal with his fear of storms :D I also merged it in with the adashi month high school AU prompt. 
> 
> twitter: adadshi

It was just starting to drizzle when Adam ended soccer practice. He rounded the team up, congratulated them for their hard work today and sent them off to the locker room. While the rest of the team sauntered off, giving each other noogies and fooling around the way teenage boys did, Shiro stayed behind with Adam. They picked up plastic cones and kicked balls back into the sports storeroom. Usually, they would take their time with cleaning up but today Adam was in no mood to mess around.

“You got a lot of homework tonight or something?” Shiro asked while they showered. Adam scrubbed at his hair and scowled.

“No more than usual.” Adam was an exceptional student. He balanced being the soccer team captain with taking six other classes all while retaining a perfect 4.0 GPA. He wasn’t the most popular kid but his soccer teammates adored their captain. He was closest with Shiro- they met in English on the first day of high school and clicked instantly. They were two peas in a pod, which made this sudden curtness very unusual.

“I just don’t get why you’re rushing,” Shiro mumbled. He turned off his shower and grabbed a towel. By the time he was dressed, Adam already had his kit packed and was leaving the locker room without him. 

“Hey, wait up!” He called out. He just barely caught up to Adam at the main exit of the school, “What’s going on with you today? Hang on, you forgot your glasses. Let’s go back and grab them.”

“It’s fine, Shiro. I-I’ll just wear contacts tomorrow and pick my glasses up after practice.” Adam pushed the swinging doors open. The calm drizzle had turned into an angry downpour. The sky was a bruised purple. While Adam powered on, Shiro stopped at a bench and got his hoodie out from his bag. He wrestled it over his head while he ran to catch up. If Adam had any protection from the rain in his bag, he didn’t stop to pull it out. He blinked raindrops out of his eyes.

After soccer practice, Adam and Shiro would usually walk into town and study together in a cafe or library. Shiro had a daunting piece of Biology I homework due in for the next day but he felt like it would be something he’d have to tackle alone. 

Underneath the sound of raindrops violently thrashing against the sidewalk, there was the low rumbling of thunder. Adam shivered. Shiro momentarily wondered if Adam would allow them to stop at the dollar store for a rain poncho. He was drenched- Shiro felt freezing just looking at him. 

When the first crack of lightning came, Adam didn’t react. Shiro looked at the bright light behind the clouds in awe. He was a big fan of thunderstorms but he knew they had to be watched from a safe distance.

“Hey, Adam. We need to get shelter.” He said. Adam didn’t stop walking. He might’ve sped up a little bit. Unsure if he was heard the first time, Shiro called his name again.

“Come on! What’s so important that you need to rush home? It’s not safe to be out right now!” Shiro was yelling now. Adam was several paces ahead of him and the wind was picking up. His shoelaces had come undone, they whipped back and forth in the air.

The bright flash of lightning illuminated the plum-coloured sky for a second time. The lightning extended down jaggedly, like an evil witch’s crooked finger, and struck a tree on the other side of the street. Shiro jumped back in shock. He’d never seen lightning strike so close. This wasn’t a safe situation.

He was a very good rational thinker. A little bit of thunder and lightning couldn’t scare him. Adam was powering on through the rain and gale, likely heading to the train station that would take him home. Shiro mapped out the route in his mind: there were lots of tall, leafy trees along that path that were definite safety hazards. If they were struck by lightning, they would be set alight and could fall onto Adam. Shiro needed to find them shelter. 

_Aha! I’ve got it!_ Underneath the tall trees, there was an old bus shelter. It was made of stone and concrete and no one waited for buses there. It was far too spooky- spiders had made it home with cobwebs and Shiro knew it was decorated with vulgar graffiti. But it was the closest safe place that came to mind. He and Adam could ride out the storm there.

Now here was the main problem- how would he convince Adam to stop? He seemed very determined to rush home. Shiro didn’t know if he could talk Adam out of it either- he wasn’t a member of the school debate team like he was. But Shiro was the strongest boy the soccer team had. He could use that to his advantage.

When the bus shelter came into sight, Shiro started to run. The wind was pushing against him but he was determined to catch up to Adam. In his mind, he was playing soccer in front of a passionate crowd that roared and cheered for him. He was so close to the ball and the ball was close to the net! _Alright, here goes nothing._ Adam was beside him now- Shiro reached out and pushed him to the shelter.

Adam stumbled inside and crashed into the wall. _Score! And the crowd goes wild!_ The next flash of lightning was followed by a roar of thunder. Shiro quickly filed in after Adam and set his bag down.

“I’m sorry I pushed you, Adam, but you weren’t listening to me,” Shiro said. Adam kept his head down while Shiro lectured him about the importance of staying safe during a storm. 

“You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than win the lottery. And you won twenty dollars from that scratch card so you need to be especially careful, Adam.” He looked at Adam and noticed that, although they were out of the rain, his face was still wet. Tears. Tears were streaming down his face.

“Shut up.” He whined as he slid down against the wall. He had his hands covering his ears and his face was crumpled in frustration. “Just shut up.”

“Adam?” Shiro asked, “What’s wrong?” 

It was only when Adam flinched after a particularly loud moment of thunder that Shiro understood what was happening. Adam was scared of thunderstorms.

“Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry. I’m so stupid. I’m sorry.” His apologies spilt out like rain from a heavy grey cloud, “I promise we’re safest here. Finding shelter is the most important part of staying safe during a storm. I promise I know what I’m talking about, we learn about it in Physics and you know that’s the only class I’m passing.”

Adam spluttered out a weak laugh and looked up at him. 

“Even if we do have shelter, it’s not the same as home. I usually plan things out so well beforehand. I guess this storm came earlier than I expected…”

“What do you usually do during a storm?”

Adam was silent for a moment and, when he finally opened his mouth to talk, a flash of lightning cast his horrified features in yellow light. He buried his head into his arms and started to shake.

“Hey, come on, you were going to tell me how you usually deal with storms.” He gently lifted Adam’s chin and looked into his eyes. Wow- were they always this pretty? He’d never seen Adam without his glasses before, the thick rims had been hiding some real beauty. 

“I-I put on ear defenders to block out the thunder,” Adam said. Shiro nodded and reached over to his school bag where he kept his headphones. They weren’t noise-cancelling but he slipped them onto Adam’s head and handed him his phone.

“Pick out a song. Anything you like.” Adam took a few moments to find a song he liked. When he did, he turned the volume up loud and pressed play. Shiro watched his rigid shoulders relax and how he rocked himself ever so slightly. 

When the next wave of thunder came, Adam didn’t react at all. But the flashes of lightning made him flinch. Shiro pulled back one of the headphone ears and whispered, “How do you deal with the lightning flashes?”

“A big blanket. I wrap myself in it so I feel warm and can’t see anything.”

Shiro hummed to himself as he thought about what to do. A blanket… the best thing he had was his hoodie. But he was hesitant to take it off because then he would be hit by the cold. He stretched the torso out as far as he could and inspected the length. It would be a squeeze but two people could probably fit in it.

He helped Adam come to a stand and carefully directed him underneath the bottom of the hoodie. He wriggled around until his head appeared at the top. Shiro smiled down at him and smiled wider when he felt Adam wrap his arms around his waist. He kept his head tucked into his chest so that, when the next flash of thunder came, he would be unaware of it.

They stayed like that for some time, with Shiro rocking them in the same gentle way Adam had rocked himself earlier. They were close friends, they had been for four years, but this was a new kind of vulnerability Shiro had never seen from Adam. It was strange, but not bad. Adam was still soggy from the rain but he made Shiro’s chest feel warm. He blushed and was very glad that no one would see. 

Adam was a special person, Shiro had always thought so. There was no challenge Adam couldn’t overcome and he tried his hardest with all of his classes. He put so much effort into the soccer team: organising matches, sourcing uniforms and staying up late at night to learn about strategies and tactics used by world-class teams. Shiro knew that this effort extended outside of school. On Saturdays, Adam ran a chess club for elementary kids in a local church hall. He taught them to play and showed them recorded matches between chess champions. He hadn’t even bragged about it to Shiro. While jogging one day, he went past the church hall and saw Adam and the children in the parking lot, marking out a big grid to play human chess. 

Adam was basically a super-human. He never stopped, there was always a project he had to tend to. When he and Shiro studied after school, he would often have to step away for phone calls. Shiro could see him becoming a businessman someday, wearing a black suit and walking down Wall Street while barking down the phone to his secretary.

But seeing him like this, vulnerable and pressed up against his chest, Shiro felt comforted. Adam seemed like a regular guy to him now, not just a robot who worked, worked, worked. It was a comforting revelation. Being a superhuman wasn’t healthy, everyone had their weaknesses. 

The thunder and lightning slowly ebbed out and the rain moved away. Shiro gently removed the headphones from Adam and said, “Back to normal now.” 

Adam wriggled out from the hoodie and carefully poked his head out of the bus shelter. The sun was shining brightly.

“Thanks.” He said quietly. They picked up their bags and left the shelter together, hand in hand. 

“Next time you’re worried about something, let me know, okay?” Shiro squeezed his hand. Adam nodded. “Even if it sounds dumb, I won’t make fun of you.” The rain on the sidewalk had been completely dried up. Birds swooped and sang overhead. 

“Are you scared of any dumb things?”

“Oh, where do I even start? Clowns, needles, snakes, that geography teacher we had last year.”

“Mrs McCreadie?” 

“Yeah! She gives me the creeps. She totally ruined that class for me.”

“Remember she yelled at me for sneezing during the pledge? It’s not my fault I get bad hay fever.”

They got the train home together, talking about silly fears as they travelled. When they got off at their stop, now ready to part ways, Shiro made Adam promise to FaceTime him later to confirm he was feeling better. 

“No studying tonight.” He said strictly, “You need to let yourself relax.” Adam nodded and adjusted the bag strap on his shoulder.

“Got it.” He got onto the tips of his toes, pressed a gentle kiss to Shiro’s cheek, turned and walked away. Shiro stood wide-eyed. 

“Adam!” He spluttered, “You can’t just- hey- what?” 

Adam didn’t reply, he just waved and continued on his way. Shiro couldn’t see it, but he was blushing too. 


End file.
